Well-respected by artists and often an employer of them, Momart would also commission its clients to produce the company Christmas cards. One year, Tracey Emin made them a hanky which was later sold at auction by Sotheby's. Yesterday, she may have needed it as she learned that the Momart warehouse fire had consumed two of her seminal pieces.

Regarded as the best fine art shipper in the world, its 50,000 square metre London storage space was home to the greatest collection of contemporary British art. To many in the art world, however, it was the place where less voguish art was hidden away to bide its time until it might rekindle interest and value. As the Observer's art critic Laura Cumming wrote: "Momart is where private collections are put out to pasture, where works that are too big, too precious, too fragile or simply supernumerary to their owners' homes are discreetly tended by expert staff."

It was from here that Charles Saatchi took pieces from his cold-storage collection and moved them over to his new gallery on the banks of the Thames. Over 100 more of his purchases were still being stored and were consumed in the flames.

Momart, which operates by royal appointment, does not reveal the names of the artists or collectors who use its services to store their work, in order to protect security and client confidentiality. But it is widely known that it has its own formaldehyde team so that it can deal with Damien Hirst's sharks and cows.

When the Guardian visited the warehouse in Leyton in 1996 "work by almost every major artist on the contemporary art scene is racked against the walls, packed, labelled and kept in a climate-controlled environment (a steady 20C)".

Yesterday, London's fine art insurers began counting how much they will have to pay out in the wake of the fire that destroyed millions of pounds worth of work. They do not need to see the damage for themselves. Claims managers for fine art specialist insurers know exactly how much they will have to pay to the dealers, collectors and artists who own the works.

Most art is insured on a fixed-value basis agreed between the insurer and the policyholder. Often a work will be valued at the height of its market. Many of the Britart pieces stored at Momart would have been calculated around the time of the Royal Academy's Sensation exhibition in 1997 and some of it would now have a lower resale value. Sometimes, however, art is insured on a market value at the time of the loss.

Robert Reid, of Hiscox, Europe's leading fine art insurer, said that most of the art lost in this week's fire was "established". However, he added: "The thing about art is it goes up and down in value. Some of the artists have yet to reach their peak and some may have peaked already. Some of today's stars may be worthless in the future."

Mr Reid said the fire would not make too much of a dent on the insurance market. A fire at the warehouse of fine art shipper Charles Bourlet in 1991, in which £100m worth of art works was lost, had an impact on the art but not insurance market. "We are used to dealing with catastrophic losses," he said.

Susie Collier, claims manager with art insurers AXA Art, said all fine art insurance companies would be expecting to make large payouts following the fire. "Momart is probably the most highly regarded fine art and shipping company in the country," she said. "Most major collectors and dealers will have works there, although this is not their only warehouse. Most fine art insurance companies will be affected by this."

But for many Momart users, it is not about the money. Patrick Heron's daughters have lost 50 paintings. His dealer, Leslie Waddington, said: "We will have to rethink storage in London. Had I known what was going to happen I would not have wanted all Patrick Heron's pictures from the Tate retrospective together."

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About this article

Big, precious, fragile: counting the cost of art consumed in flames

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 06.10 EDT on Thursday 27 May 2004.
It was last modified at 06.10 EDT on Friday 28 May 2004.
It was first published at 06.10 EDT on Friday 28 May 2004.